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Are "live" icons the next big thing to hit the iPhone?
- Thread starter sjn419
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Its possible that Apple will include them. There's WeatherIcon and LiveClock in the jailbreak world. Both run nicely (LiveClock only on 3.X.X) on my iPhone. If Apple does add this feature, it'll be another one of their "innovations", just like Summerboard.
I don't see how, if your notifications are set to push then the info is already there.
I'm not sure how this works on other phones, but the only problem I see with live update (in regards to the weather icon) is it going to adapt to my current location?
I travel a lot for my job, which means that I'm always in different city's, so in order for a live update to be useful to me, it would have to constantly be using my GPS to track my location, and I see this consuming a lot data and battery, no thanks.
I travel a lot for my job, which means that I'm always in different city's, so in order for a live update to be useful to me, it would have to constantly be using my GPS to track my location, and I see this consuming a lot data and battery, no thanks.
if it was to work like WeatherIcon then i think it just goes based on the city you're weather app is set to so when that changes so does the icon.
Specifically for the weather app, if you wanted real time data, it would need to constantly refresh data in order to achieve this. Depending on the frequency of the refresh, it would increase the amount of data you used.
If you simply wanted push notifications of certain apps, then it would still need to refresh the data in order to give you real time information and then it would notify you of it.
The increase would be minimal. It'd probably just download a plist off of Apple's or Yahoo's servers to get the latest local weather.
I think if Apple was going to do this, it would be accomplished through some form of local push notification iteration.
For example, if the weather changes, it will send a local push notification where instead of being displayed as a numbered badge, it would instead be displayed as a change in the icon itself, either through preset animations (such as if there is a storm coming, the app icon will change to a preloaded picture/animation of a storm).
In addition, there could also be synced icons. For example, if you purchased a clock application, the app would sync every time you opened the application and perform modest adjustments to the time accuracy. For special instances such as Daylight Savings Time, there could once again be a form of local push notification to make a one hour adjustment to the clock on the app icon.
For example, if the weather changes, it will send a local push notification where instead of being displayed as a numbered badge, it would instead be displayed as a change in the icon itself, either through preset animations (such as if there is a storm coming, the app icon will change to a preloaded picture/animation of a storm).
In addition, there could also be synced icons. For example, if you purchased a clock application, the app would sync every time you opened the application and perform modest adjustments to the time accuracy. For special instances such as Daylight Savings Time, there could once again be a form of local push notification to make a one hour adjustment to the clock on the app icon.
Not only would it use more data, not a problem to those of us with unlimited data plans 
, but what would the battery life be like.
Could the shortened battery life experienced by some with jailbroken phones be partially caused by apps like these?
, but what would the battery life be like. Could the shortened battery life experienced by some with jailbroken phones be partially caused by apps like these?
If it refreshes the current temperature and weather condition (eg. sunny) every 10 minutes, and each update is 10kB (wouldn't that be too high?) that's only 42 MB per month. That's hardly anything, and 10 minutes is a pretty quick interval...temp doesn't change much in that time. That's assuming it's updating 6x/hour for 24 hours for 30 days.
Not hard to do with out using GPS. The most common method is to use the cell tower your phone is connected to. That will have you with in a range of 1 mile, normally less. Never touches the GPS and never requires your phone doing anything extra. That is generally close enough to update your location.
Well on my black berry I have a weather app that updates every 15 mins and I could set it to be less or more but 15 min fine.
Each update is less than 1kb data and that is updated 5 location ever 15 min. That is less than 3 megs of data per month assuming I am never in range of wifi which most phones are going to spend at least 50% of their time in so those updates would get off loaded to wifi any how.
My wife has an AT&T Tilt2 (made by HTC) and this is exactly what it does and the battery on her phone lasts fine. Now, she does not use it nearly as heavily as my iPhone, especially for games or web, but it will last 3 times longer than my iPhone also. Its certainyl possible to do it in a way that economizes on battery usage.
Interesting, I had no idea.
and Rodimus Prime, thanks for the reply as well, I didn't consider the towers, I just assumed it would require GPS, but your methods makes sense.
Good golly.
A certain Apple CEO sure has frightened a lot of people away from useful items over the years, using the battery as a boogeyman to excuse missing features.
I've had live weather on several phones. Right now, it's on my Incredible.
You can set the update schedule to be every 1, 3, 6, 12, or 24 hours. Or you can click the update icon any time you wish.
Interestingly, it seems to notice a location change (by cell tower switch, perhaps?). I'm always amazed when I look down and it's changed town labels. It's like magic
According to my battery watchers, the impact is negligible.
A certain Apple CEO sure has frightened a lot of people away from useful items over the years, using the battery as a boogeyman to excuse missing features.
I've had live weather on several phones. Right now, it's on my Incredible.
You can set the update schedule to be every 1, 3, 6, 12, or 24 hours. Or you can click the update icon any time you wish.
Interestingly, it seems to notice a location change (by cell tower switch, perhaps?). I'm always amazed when I look down and it's changed town labels. It's like magic
According to my battery watchers, the impact is negligible.
If Stevie decides to catch up to Android then the fanboys will eat their words and do a complete turn about. Suddenly all this Android bashing will be moot.